Photo Gallery: Bears

Wet Polar Bear

Photograph by Paul Nicklen

With their slightly webbed paws and powerful muscles, polar bears are excellent swimmers. Their favorite meal is seals, but they will eat anything they can catch, even scavenging through garbage in areas where their habitat overlaps with humans.

Close-Up of Polar Bear Paws

Black Bear Mother and Cub

Photograph by Norbert Rosing

Mother black bears are notoriously protective of their cubs, who stay with their mothers for about two years.

Black Bears Playing

Photograph by Robert Caputo

Black bear cubs are born in the winter, but emerge from their dens in the springtime. They are playful and curious, but always under their mother's watchful eye. A mother bear will call to her cubs when danger is present, and is fearless when defending her offspring.

Brown Bear Hunting

Photograph by George F. Mobley

A brown bear hunts for fish in Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge on an island off the southern coast of Alaska. A male Kodiak brown bear can rear up some 10 feet (3 meters) and, at 1,500 pounds (680 kilograms), move at speeds as high as 35 miles (56 kilometers) an hour.